Don’t Waste the Blessing

Proverbs 12:27

“Lazy people don’t even cook the game they catch, but the diligent make use of everything they find.” (NLT)

As some you know I am chronologically reading through the Bible and creating a junk journal of sorts; collecting and treasuring scripture as I go. I am taking my time, I am not on a time table trying to get through it in a year. It may be a few years and I am ok with that. 

When I read this verse, it hurt, OUCH! And of course I had to dig a little deeper into this verse and this is where it really hurt.

Proverbs contrasts laziness with diligence by showing that failing to finish what we begin wastes the blessings God has already provided. Like game left uncooked, neglected opportunities, gifts, and responsibilities can be lost through inaction or laziness. A diligent person, however, recognizes God’s provisions as valuable and practices careful stewardship of time, skills, relationships, and resources. Diligence is an expression of gratitude, honoring God by faithfully completing the work He has entrusted to us.

This verse reminds me to follow through on what I begin, faithfully manage what God has entrusted to me, and recognize every blessing as something worth cultivating, putting in the effort needed to transform potential into purpose, fruitfulness, and lasting joy.

I am so guilty of this. It’s easy for food to go bad in our house because it’s hard to eat anything when your eyes see food and your stomach says; “Nope.” Dust piles up, the house gets a little messier and dirtier until one of us can clean it. However, with a chronic illness like migraines and many times with those migraines comes nausea and thus food goes to waste because there have beens many days where I eat very little. I’m not being lazy. If you’re like me there are days lifting my head off the pillow takes so much energy to take care of anything else, it’s just not a priority. That’s not an excuse, that’s just an explanation. I want to be sensitive to those of us with chronic illness and find it hard to be consistent when some days you’re in survival mode. I can honestly say that the migraines are becoming fewer and I am able to be more attentive and consistent with things. It does bother me that food gets wasted. I am working on that. God understands I am not lazy. Sometimes I am a little lazy I’ll admit, but many days I’m in survival mode. 

When it comes to my art supplies; I have lots. Many I don’t use sometimes because I forget I have them because they are stashed somewhere in a draw. Kinda outta sight outta mind. I try to use what I have before I go out and spend money on something I am likely not to use or end up not liking. If whatever hasn’t been used in a while, I’ll donate it and bless someone else with it. 

Then there’s the actual pieces of art that go left unfinished. I get to a point where I either lose interest or deem it not worth finishing because of a mistake or I just don’t like how it turned out. I have lots of those pieces. So I am trying to recycle them and reused them somehow, maybe try and fix them or finish them. There have been times I am just playing and experimenting and I come up with something really I really like and then sometimes it’s just a mess. But I don’t have to toss the whole thing out, there may be parts that can be used.

The image at the top are attempts of me just playing and experimenting . Some are messy, and some just ok. I can cut out the things I like and use them as ephemera in my junk journal. I can also reuse the back and paint on it. And the scraps I can use to make a color palette and test colors and even those can be used for something.  I am human I do make mistakes but I can still be a good steward of the resources God has provided.

As I continued reflecting on Proverbs 12:27, another verse came to mind — Philippians 1:6.

I think there is another layer to this verse that God is revealing to me, one that goes beyond what we do with the things He has placed in our hands.

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